


room to breathe

by Anonymous



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post S8, Rarepair, Suicidal Thoughts, everyone just has a lot of emotions, i think this might just be a very long character study, jaime is dead and stays dead, no one asked for this fic, sad kid fic, show canon only, slowest burn ever, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22318282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Post S8. Ellaria Sand takes her daughter back to Dorne, escorted by the new Hand of the King. Brienne goes home.
Relationships: Brienne of Tarth/Ellaria Sand, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (Past), Tyrion Lannister & Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Tyrion I

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure this means I'm a Game of Thrones fan now. I idly thought "How funny would it be if the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard just casually popped out a baby and everyone felt really awkward about bringing it up? I'm going to write that," but it instead became this ridiculous emotional rarepair thing that nobody asked for, not even me.

There wasn't much to do but consider all the ways he had failed during the long hours he sat in his cell. Days passed; weeks, then months. Tyrion had never been the type to give in to wallowing, preferring to drink or fuck away his more maudlin thoughts, but there was no wine and no company to distract him from the fact that he had no family, no queen, no hope. All he had left was his life and his mind, which—in lieu of anything else to fail miserably at solving—he used to try to untangle the threads of his own mistakes.

Where had his downfall begun? Varys standing before the dragon, resigned yet kind enough to feed Tyrion a line of their old hope to hang himself with? Daenerys, voice soft, _I had something made for you_ , fastening that thrice-damned pin to his clothes; that pin which held in place thanks to his arrogance that he was smart enough to help his chosen queen conquer and rule the seven kingdoms? The necklace in his hands as Shae's body convulsed against his; his hands shaking slightly as he held the crossbow that killed his father?

Or was it earlier? Jaime saying, _Sometimes I wonder whose side you are on_ , bitter words to hear at the thought of the boy who lay in his bed, uncertain to wake, made unsafe in his own home by the sins of adults who should have known better? Or the image of Cersei's skirts sweeping away burning in his mind as Jaime clutched his arm, face pale as Tyrion whispered, _Jaime, you're hurting me_ , afraid because Jaime had always been gentle but his big brother's fingers were digging into the flesh of his arm and his voice was harsh, saying, _Tyrion, no one can ever know, do you understand me?_ And they hadn't, not until Jon Arryn, not until Ned Stark, and now Tyrion's entire family was dead except for him, the one that had killed their mother, then their father.

Life was full of these cruel little ironies. Tyrion found himself dwelling on his dead over and over, every resurfacing memory a wash of reemerged shame and fury at himself, pushing him to sunk deeper into self-pity. _Jaime_ , always first, Tyrion's beloved brother, his greatest weakness. _Myrcella. Tommen. Joffrey. Cersei. Tywin._ His father, who had tried to kill him but never quite succeeded, all because of Tyrion's first kill: _Joanna._

 _Daenerys. Varys. Shae. Tysha. Where do whores go?_ Tyrion's mind skittered away from that old wound, the new ones already quite enough to deal with. 

Tyrion let out a deep breath. He considered killing himself, then dismissed it as he had already done countless times before. Someone was sure to do it for him at some point. Why go through the trouble? Instead, he began again from the top: _Jaime._

Only, this time he was interrupted by the sound of the door being unlocked. It was almost a relief that his time to die had finally come. The last of the Lannisters. He didn't look to see who it was. It didn't matter.

"Tyrion." The voice that spoke was his former lady wife. This was novel enough that Tyrion found himself actually sitting up on the thin pallet they had generously provided him and turning to look at her.

"Lady Sansa," he said. Behind the Lady of Winterfell loomed her lady knight, _Ser_ Brienne of Tarth, the woman Jaime had knighted, bedded, and abandoned. 

Seeing her, the momentary surge of interest that Sansa's arrival had inspired in him faded away, leaving only a cold pit of grief and bitterness. _Why weren't you enough?_ The words sat on the tip of his tongue, cruel as they were. _Why couldn't you keep him with you in the North? Safe?_

Tyrion didn't say it. Petty cruelty was a Lannister specialty, but he was tired of being a Lannister. He turned away from the two women and laid back down on the mat, preparing to slide back into the melancholy that had plagued him since he'd been put in his cell. They seemed unlikely to have come to drag him to his execution. Tyrion figured if he ignored them long enough, they would just go away.

"Tyrion," Lady Sansa said again, in that sure, imperious tone she had developed after fleeing Kings Landing the last time he had been imprisoned.

"Lady Sansa," Tyrion repeated, not bothering to move. "This is a fun game we're playing. I'm delighted you came here to interrupt the monotony of my days with it. Maybe for variation we might try nicknames next? I've quite a number that are available for your use. On the other hand, I can't seem to recall you having any, but I'm sure I can come up with something given the right incentive."

The Lady of Winterfell said tightly, "I need your help. Please."

Tyrion laughed loudly and bitterly. "Help?" he repeated with derision. "Of course, my lady; I will help you however you wish until our new ruler, whoever that might end up being, lets Grey Worm chop off my head."

"Good," Sansa said coolly. "I will take your word for it. Turn around, Tyrion." 

Tyrion didn't want to. He was tired and he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do for anybody. Sansa was far too clever not to know that.

"Turn around," Sansa insisted again.

Tyrion turned around with a sigh to look at Sansa with the most compellingly wretched expression he could summon up.

Sansa met his gaze, implacable. Then she stepped to the side, revealing—

"My lord," Brienne of Tarth said. Instead of armor, she was wearing loose tunic and pants—an unusual sight in itself in the daytime, but—she nodded at him, and then stood there stoically as he gaped at her. A blush crawled its way across her face and neck as Tyrion stared blankly at her midsection for several long seconds, because—

"Ser," Tyrion said finally, faintly. "You're increasing." 

"Yes," said Ser Brienne of Tarth.

"It's, you, he," stuttered Tyrion as Ser Brienne grew more and more red in the face. 

"Yes," she said. "It's his. I never..." She looked away from him.

Lady Sansa reached out to put a hand on her lady knight's arm. There was a long moment, one that Tyrion understood he was not a part of, in which silence weighed heavily in the room. Then Ser Brienne put her hand on top of Sansa's and scrounged up a reassuring smile for her lady. At that, Sansa smiled back, a gentle, unrepentantly pleased thing that Tyrion had never seen from her before. Another thing to mourn: the death of her childhood at the hands of his own flesh and blood, his uselessness in protecting a young girl from the machinations of lions.

The young woman who'd had to learn to protect herself now looked at him, her eyes sharp. A wolf protecting her pack.

"I have a plan," Sansa said. "Will you help us?"

"Yes," Tyrion said, feeling truly wretched, helpless again. _Jaime's child._ "Of course."


	2. Ellaria I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellaria speaks with Tyrion about breaking wheels.

It was some cruel joke of the gods that Ellaria had survived. 

Oberyn was dead. Tyene was dead. _Cersei_ was probably dead. Millions of others in Kings Landing were definitely dead. And yet Ellaria was not dead.

The gods had a terrible sense of humor. 

She tried to fight the men off when they came to dig her out of her collapsed cell, but she was too weak. It was somehow devastating when they'd assumed that it was because she thought they had come to rape and kill her. They'd kept _reassuring_ her, as if she hadn't already lost everything she had to live for. "We're not here to hurt you," one said kindly. "We're just trying to find any survivors. Do you mind—I'm not a maester exactly, but I've got some training—perhaps you would prefer a woman? I could call Gilly—"

Ellaria didn't prefer anything. She glared and snarled at anyone who tried to take her from her daughter's grave.

One of the men gave a shout after moving some of the rubble. "This one's been dead for a while," he said. "Since before the dragons, maybe weeks." They'd all looked at her then, silent and measuring, and to her everlasting shame, the tears came again. _Mama_ , Tyene had said, and Ellaria hadn't been able to comfort her, soothe her way into death. Only witness. Only grieve. Only weep as her beautiful daughter bled and decayed before her eyes, and then watch as her rotting corpse was buried as the very walls crumbled around and above them. Ellaria had been so sure she would die then.

Time moved strangely after that. The men were gone, then it was dark, then it was daylight again. She wondered if she would die here, forgotten. Cersei had sent guards to shove food and water down her throat, so that Ellaria wouldn't die, no matter how much she wished to, but there had been none since the walls had fallen. 

The woman named Gilly came to coax Ellaria to eat, and returned each day to do it again. One day she brought a man who puzzled over Ellaria's chains for a bit, but eventually managed to cut her out of them. Ellaria refused to leave her daughter, despite the smell. A Silent Sister was found, death rites performed for what was left of Tyene. Ellaria ended up in a room in a house outside the walls of the Red Keep that had miraculously escaped destruction, a guard at her door and a chest of bones at the foot of her bed. Gilly continued to visit everyday, her practical, undemanding chatter a surprisingly welcome distraction. Ellaria never spoke, but the young woman didn't seem to expect it. 

She fell asleep one night and thought it was a dream when she opened her eyes and saw Tyrion Lannister before her, a plate of bread and a wineskin in his hands. Her eyes flickered briefly to the symbol of the Hand pinned to his shirt, and his expression shifted into something briefly tragic before he composed himself. She wondered at it but not enough so to pursue it.

"Will you eat?" he asked.

Ellaria tried to speak, found she could manage it. "Is it poisoned?" Her voice was a wrecked, crackling thing. Oberyn would've hated to hear it, but she found herself oddly relieved of it.

The dwarf looked immediately horrified. "No, of course not." He tried to smile, but it faltered before it could even take shape. "I... I couldn't." Couldn't? Wouldn't? Was there someone who had counseled him to do it?

She would have.

"Then I don't want it," Ellaria told him. He made a noise like a gasp, a wounded sound.

He did not speak or move even a muscle for a long moment; then he placed the plate and wineskin on the nearby table, sank down into a kneeling position beside her bed. Almost like a supplication. She stared at him then, the Lannister cub on his knees at her side. She could kill him now, she thought, but small though he was, her strength had wasted away in captivity and he had never been the true target of her vengeance. She could not summon the energy or will to even try. For weeks now, she had barely even sat up in her bed.

"I'm sorry for your loss. What has been done to you is beyond what any mother should have to bear," he said, and: "Please. Tell me. Can you bear it? Or should I find you some poison? I cannot... I cannot just leave you here."

_Could she bear it?_ What a question to ask. Yet now that it had been asked, Ellaria found to her dismay that she was searching herself for the answer—and some traitorous, insistent part of her wanted to say _yes_. Tears emerged anew and she turned her head away rather than let him see them.

Ellaria asked hollowly, "Is the queen dead?"

She asked not out of curiosity, but only to buy herself some time to think, but the lingering pause her question provoked eventually caused her to turn her head again to look at him.

It was he that turned away now. "Yes," Tyrion said finally. "Daenerys is dead, as is Cersei."

Ellaria watched him now more carefully. The blow to him was clearly greater than it was to her, on both accounts. She had respected Daenerys and would have supported the Targaryen girl's claim to the Iron Throne, but she had been more a means to an end and Ellaria had no real love for her; Cersei, she would have torn apart with her own hands if she could have. Ellaria found now to her own dull surprise that the news of either death stirred neither anger nor grief within her. Perhaps that would come later. Perhaps the death of a queen was little compared to the death of a lover, a daughter, a family.

Tyrion, though. She had seen him with Daenerys. He would be grieving for that one, even if he didn't grieve his sister. Ellaria saw it in him now, in the heavy slump of his body, the unhappy set of his face.

It mattered little at this point, but she was still compelled to ask. "Then who...?"

"King Bran Stark, first of his name, now rules the six kingdoms," Tyrion said. "The Iron Throne is no more. The independent North is now ruled by his sister, Queen Sansa."

Ellaria was possessed of an inexplicable and manic urge to laugh, but it died nearly immediately and left her feeling hollow. Nothing had gone as anyone had planned. This was what war had brought them to—a splintering of everything that once was, a traitorous bastard woman and an prideless lion talking in a small room of no consequence about an uncertain future.

"And what does _King Bran_ plan to do with me?" she sneered over the title. Five kings, two queens, all in less than a decade. Who knew how long this one would last?

Tyrion looked down at his knees. "What would you have him do? Prince Quentyn has made it clear that you will not be welcome in Dorne, though he has allowed your daughter's bones to be sent to rest in her homeland." He hesitated, then continued. "You may accompany them and attend the funeral ceremony on the condition that you are chained and attended to by a guard for your own safety, and your promise you will never again raise arms or conspire against the crown or Dorne, and then depart immediately after, never to return."

Ellaria let the words sink in slowly. She did not like the terms, but they were kinder than she had expected considering all that she had reaped. She would be granted her life, at the cost of her home—but she had already taken the risk of losing the latter when she had decided to turn on Doran, who had not loved her but had allowed her a place at his brother's side. She hoped the remaining Sand Snakes would have a place still. She would know soon enough, she supposed. 

To accept the terms felt somehow akin to giving up, yet the idea did not displease her. She had raged and it had come to naught but more death. She had no regrets but nor did she feel the need for more than she had been offered. Strange, that. But not unwelcome. 

Ellaria knew then that she would take her daughter home. That was the least she could do for Tyene: a homecoming that she could not give Nymeria or Obara, whose bodies had been taken by the sea.

Let come whatever might. Ellaria would live. She was not afraid.

"I understand," Ellaria said finally. The words tasted of defeat, and she savored them bitterly. "The prince is generous. I accept his terms. After the ceremony, I will not set foot in Dorne again."

Tyrion let out a long breath, and nodded. "Good. I will send a messenger with the details of your journey. Prince Oberyn has already returned to Dorne, so it may take some days to settle the details. You will stay here in the meantime." He eased slowly back up into standing position, grimacing. He nodded to her again and made to leave.

Before he reached the door, she said, "I killed her, you know."

Tyrion stopped. Without turning, he said flatly: "Myrcella." Tension gathered in the line of his shoulders. 

"So you did know," Ellaria said. 

Tyrion said, "I did."

Ellaria looked up at the ceiling. A strange roaring filled her mind for the span of two or three breaths before she could speak again. "I would do it again, even now. I only regret that I could not do the same to your sister."

The silence was deafening. Yet he did not leave, nor did he make any movement back towards her.

Ellaria said, "I wonder that you would offer me any kindness, any condolences. I murdered your kin. Your niece. A lovely young woman by any account, on the cusp of womanhood, her whole life ahead of her. In love." Still no reaction. "Innocent." 

"My brother's daughter," Tyrion said, very quietly. 

A curious choice of phrase. "And your sister's," she pointed out.

Silence reigned again. Tyrion took a step toward the door, then another. He put his hand on it, but then turned his head towards her. "Don't you tire of war?" he asked her. "What has war ever gained anyone? As far as I can see, war only breeds loss and more loss." He stood there, eyes downcast. "I am tired of losing. It seems that is all I ever do recently." 

She stared at him. He did not meet her eyes.

"Daenerys," Tyrion said, carefully picking his way to the question she hadn't asked, "wanted to break the wheel. I am only half a man and I have no dragons. The best I can do is stop feeding the wheel in the hope that it might slow, if not stop." He looked at her now. "You killed my niece and you would have killed my sister. I killed my father. He and my sister would have killed me. She killed...many. She was mother to Joffrey who killed many, and would have killed many more and delighted in it. My brother killed a king and my father gave the order that killed Elia Martell and her children, thus starting this blood feud with Dorne that Oberyn threw his life away over." Ellaria stiffened and must have made some noise because he turned fully to face her now, his hand sliding off the door and falling to his side.

"Oberyn wanted justice," she hissed.

"Justice," Tyrion echoed. He looked down at his hands. "How quaint a notion. After so fair a trial, I wonder what justice he thought he might find." He sighed, and met her eyes. "I don't wish for your death, nor your suffering. Do you wish for mine?"

She closed her eyes against his direct gaze, but then let them flutter back open to look at him. "No," Ellaria admitted reluctantly. She felt strangely disloyal, which she didn't like. Oberyn had carried his grudge against the Lannisters and Gregor Clegane for many years and she had no doubt he could have held onto it for many more.

But she was not Oberyn. As far as she was concerned, all her enemies were now dead.

"That is enough," he said. "For me, at least. I don't wish for justice."

She studied him a long moment. "What do you wish for then, little lion?"

Tyrion smiled wryly. "Peace," he said, and bowed courteously before finally making his exit and leaving Ellaria to consider what peace might be.


	3. Brienne I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selwyn Tarth welcomes his daughter home.

Home had changed. Either that, or Brienne had changed. Her father was of the opinion that it was the latter. Ser Goodwin, when she mentioned it, said it was most likely a combination of the two.

Brienne smiled involuntarily at the memory of that. There was comfort to be had in the familiar: her father and herself butting heads, both too stubborn for their own good, with Ser Goodwin taking the balanced middle ground.

She had missed them. It was wonderful to be back at Evenfall, though strange. Home had once been all she'd known: her father, Ser Goodwin, and Septa Roelle pushing and pulling at her and each other in their small microcosm of the world. Then she had gone, despite her father and Septa Roelle's vehement objections, and come back more and less than who she had been.

A knock on the door startled her out of her thoughts.

"Brienne?" It was her father.

"Come in," she called back.

The door opened and her father, taller than even she, had to duck his silver head under the top of the doorway to enter. She didn't stand to greet him; she knew he would forgive her that. Maester Coren had advised her to rest and, suspecting that she might not listen, had also warned her that he would go directly to her father to repeat his instructions. As Selwyn straightened now, she saw his eyes dip down to the swell of her stomach. 

On the ship carrying her back to Tarth, Brienne had woken more than once with a tight ball of fear in her throat at the thought that he might recoil from her and the choices she had made—even though he had already known when he had invited her home. Brienne had sent that raven herself, unable to abide the idea of lying even by omission. If she went home, she would go with no secrets between them, without tricks or subterfuge. He knew all when he had bid her to return: that she was no longer a maid, that she had taken Jaime Lannister to bed, that the so-called Kingslayer had died with his sister-lover without knowing he had left Brienne with babe. That she had decided to keep it, though Sansa promised— _promised_ —that moon tea would be a relatively painless solution. 

The horror she had felt at Sansa's words had shaken her and taken root; she'd remembered the pallor of Sansa's face as she clutched Brienne's hand when the ship made land on Tarth. Brienne had seen that tall solitary figure waiting, and had to swallow down bile more than once as she walked towards him, fighting to keep her face neutral. 

Brienne wondered if she had provided Sansa even a tenth of the relief that Selwyn had given her when he had greeted her warmly with tears in his eyes, opening his arms to her. "Daughter," her father had said, "I have missed you. You are dearly welcome."

Brienne had wept when her father had drawn her into his embrace, and Selwyn had said nothing of it, only pressed her face into his shoulder and let the cloth of his fine shirt catch her tears. Sansa had been dry-eyed when, at a loss for words, Brienne had tried to do the same for her; but the Lady of Winterfell had allowed it and eventually her arms had wrapped around Brienne's torso and clung tightly. 

Brienne would have stayed in Winterfell, but Sansa had insisted. _The North has no love for Lannisters_ , Sansa had said. She had released Brienne from her service, but then concocted this plan with Tyrion to hide her on Tarth until the babe was born.

She hoped that the Queen of the North was doing well. Brienne had sent Sansa a raven three days past, but did not know whether or not to expect a reply.

"I am surprised to see you so docile," her father said now, dryly. "When Maester Coren came to insist that you _must_ be made to rest, I half expected to find you in the training grounds, beating one of the pages with the flat of one of your Valyrian steel swords."

Brienne smiled at his teasing, shifting in vain to find a more comfortable sitting position on her bed. The mountain of pillows the servant girl Lindy had brought squished formlessly against her back. "I am sure a tourney sword would be more than enough to do such a thing," she said. "Though at the moment, I suspect even the slowest page boy would be able to outrun me."

Selwyn chuckled and sat on the bed by her legs, placing one warm hand on her knee, a familiar comfort. He studied her silently, without judgment, his bright eyes searching hers for something, though she was not sure what. Brienne waited patiently, a willing subject to his scrutiny. She did not fear his rejection anymore.

Finally he smiled and reached out his other hand to cup her face in his big hand. "You have become everything I could have dreamed," Selwyn said, voice growing rough with emotion. "All that, and more besides. I am so proud of you, my daughter, my Brienne." He leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers, huffed out a short laugh. "If I had known you would come back a knight and a hero, a slayer of mythical creatures from beyond the North, I might have pushed you out the door myself instead of wasting all that time and energy arguing with you, my darling, stubborn ox of a daughter." 

_I'm proud of you._ The tears stung her eyes at those words and punched the breath out of her despite their gentle humor. "Father," Brienne croaked as the tears spilled over, "I should have sent a raven earlier—I-I am beholden to you for your kindness in sending such a-a kind message to Renly—after I left without your permission—" The rest of her words shuddered away as her emotions got the best of her. Brienne's father gripped the back of her neck firmly, pulled her into another embrace.

"You are my daughter," Selwyn whispered into her hair fiercely. " _My_ daughter. It was my duty to arm you with whatever I could to help you survive this world." He leaned back to look at her, and Brienne was shocked to see tears in his eyes as well. Her father pressed a hard kiss to her forehead and smoothed her hair back, hands shaking slightly, and Brienne realized for the first time how carefully hidden his fear for her had been. "I am lucky," he said. "Lucky, for all that I could think to give you was enough to help bring you home."

Her tears spilled over again. Her father's hands fell to her shoulders and Brienne reached up to clutch them tightly in place, two solid handholds of love and care to anchor her as a storm of grief passed through her. Brienne sobbed as she had when she let Jaime go to his death, uncontrollably and wildly; she wept for Catelyn Stark and for Sansa, for Jaime Lannister, and, in the room where she had spent the happiest and loneliest years of her childhood, she wept for the idealistic young woman she had been, the one who had stolen away in the middle of the night with dreams of King Renly and glory and love. 

"Let it out, my sweet girl," Selwyn said gently. "It turns to poison if you hold it all inside."

He held on tightly until the worst of it had eased into soft, gasping sobs; and then he pulled one hand away from her slack grip and fished a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe her face. Embarrassed, Brienne roused herself enough to snatch it away and clean her face herself. 

"I-I'm sorry," Brienne said, flustered. "Recently all I do is cry, it seems."

Selwyn shrugged, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards as he ceded the handkerchief to her, his hands up in an exaggerated expression of surrender. "I have been given to understand that such things are not entirely unusual for women with your particular affliction," he said wryly. His face gentled into an expression that Brienne had never seen before, and he added distractedly, almost as something like an afterthought, "Your mother was the most even-tempered, patient woman I had ever met in my life. Yet one day when she was heavy with Galladon, she flew into a rage and then immediately crumpled to tears over the length of a curtain. I don't know which of us was more surprised by it."

The tears faded away as surprise and awe warred for her attention instead. Her father never spoke of her mother or her brother after their deaths. Or, he had never to her until now. The wistfulness in his voice reminded Brienne of the empty, aimless time she had learned to grieve on her own after her mother's death in childbirth, the twin girls lost with her. During that time, Selwyn had buried himself in the work of the Evenstar and raising Galladon to be his heir. He had nearly disappeared completely after Galladon had drowned, but Septa Roelle and Ser Goodwin had dragged him out of his offices and duties to help them deal with their frustrations with Brienne.

Brienne held her breath, willing the leftover tendrils of emotion swirling restlessly within her not to stir. She wondered—hoped?—that he might say more of them if she could just keep still and silent, but then her father blinked and shook himself out of his memories. Selwyn looked apologetic as he met her eyes again. "I am sorry," he said heavily. "I didn't mean to bring up such sadness now."

"You never speak of them," Brienne said unthinkingly, and bit her lip in frustration. That was not what she had meant to say. "I mean," she rallied, "I miss them, too." She wished she could find the right words, but she was tired and wrung out already from her emotional outburst. She reached out and took her father's hand. "I sometimes worry," she said haltingly, "that they might...be disappointed in who I have become. I worried about disappointing you as well, but you have thoroughly disabused me of any notions of such a thing." Something eased in her to see him smile at her teasing. 

"They would have loved you," Selwyn said firmly. His surety sparked some of the same within her, a gift. "As I do. As you will love your child," Brienne startled at that, but he continued on, "and as I will love my grandchild."

Brienne could not speak for a moment, a gladness so acute as to be painful filling her throat and stoppering her words. "Thank you," she managed.

Her father eyed her then, and Brienne sensed that he had questions that he still wanted to ask. She was relieved when he visibly decided to let it lie, and said instead solemnly, "I came here for another purpose, but as always, daughter, you have caused me to forget myself." 

"I cannot be blamed for your senility, old man," Brienne said immediately, remembering this game and delighting in the reemergence of it.

"Ah," he replied, too thoughtfully, "then perhaps it would be better for me to forget my warning that Septa Roelle has gotten word of your condition and has had what Septon Lothor has described as 'a fit of sorts'? He has sent word that she threatens to march her way out of the sept and into Evenfall to renew your studies."

Brienne winced.

Selwyn laughed at her, and placed a hand on her knee again. "Never fear, my dear," he said cheerfully. "Ser Goodwin has given the guards strict instructions not to let her in." He stood and pulled out some letters from the folds of his shirt and handed them to her. "Another letter from Ser Podrick Payne, and a letter from a...Gilly? Forgive me if I have that wrong, I find her penmanship to be lacking a bit, and my eyes are not quite what they were. I also received a message from King Bran asking me to come bend the knee at my earliest convenience, though it also encourages me to take whatever time I might need before heading to Kings Landing. A message most unlike any I have received from a king before. He included a rather cryptic message for you specifically and bade me to make sure you received it."

"Thank you," Brienne said, already scanning through Podrick's long letter. Her former squire liked writing letters and had taken it upon himself to write her almost daily with all the latest news from Kings Landing, along with a surprising extra helping of gossip. He was a compelling writer, and despite herself she had become guiltily invested in the story of the displaced baker from a destroyed village in the Riverlands and one of the former kitchen girls from the Red Keep.

Her father leaned down to kiss her forehead again. "Rest," he chided her. "I will send your dinner to you tonight." 

Brienne looked up at him and nodded. "Thank you," she said again, which felt somehow lacking on its own. "Truly."

"No more of that," he warned, "or I might let Septa Roelle know about that secret entrance by the west wall."

"You wouldn't!"

Laughing, Selwyn exited her room, leaving her to her letters.

Brienne stared after him until she heard his footsteps fade, then waited to be sure he wouldn't turn back. 

Then she let out a long breath and finally looked at the note King Bran had sent her.

_The position is yours if you want it. You need only to decide if you do._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments so far! This has really been a wild ride for me. I haven't written this quickly or had so much fun writing anything in literal years. Word of warning, updates are likely going to slow down now that actual plot things are starting to happen.


	4. Tyrion II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion must go to Dorne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bran the Broken" is ableist nonsense. I've referenced it here since it's canon that Tyrion actually fucking said it, but I need to be clear that it's bullshit.

"You want me to be part of the escort to Dorne?" Tyrion asked blankly. "But...I'm your Hand. I'm supposed to be here, with you. To be your Hand."

"The Hand of the King," King Bran said distantly, in his unruffled, unblinking sort of way, "will be needed in Dorne."

And because he was king and the three-eyed raven of portents or some such thing, that was that. It was not the worst thing it could be, though Tyrion privately thought it unsettling and inconvenient in the extreme. What was his purpose as Hand if the King already knew all that was and could be? He couldn't even push the wheelchair the king sat on particularly effectively; that duty had fallen to Ser Podrick, who had taken it on with an undemanding solicitousness.

At least the last time he had been Hand for a king, there'd been plenty of things to keep Tyrion busy, what with Joffrey and Cersei's unrelenting commitment to hating him and their frequent random acts of unprecedented cruelty and/or violence. Not to mention Varys and Baelish and Pycelle making a general mash of things by making moves in the shadows at cross purposes to each other, and the mess of the five kings. Trying to protect Sansa, trying to protect Shae. Not for the first time, Tyrion wondered what Varys thought he had seen in Tyrion to save him and send him to Daenerys when he'd failed at nearly everything he had tried to do in Kings Landing.

Now Tyrion waited on the occasional word from King Bran to undertake a new project inspired by something he had seen in another time, another place. These requests were always wonderfully, frustratingly practical ideas that, even indirectly, improved the lives of the commoners living in Kings Landing; this meant that once it had been explained to the necessary people, all Tyrion needed to do then was find the right experts, put them on it, appoint some responsible overseers, and check in from time to time.

There had been some confusion and resistance in the beginning, but once people understood that these requests from the king were designed to make their lives better, they had become eager and inspired to contribute, the worst quarrels happening only because one person might have fierce opinions about how to make something _even better_ than it was, even if half had been completed already.

Better roads. Better city infrastructure. Better sewers. (Again! At least this was something Tyrion had some confidence in.) Wildfire had been carefully repurposed to clear rubble or tear down half-destroyed buildings that could not be salvaged. Establishing procedures for safer trade routes. Courier routes. Brothels, of course, but also hospitals. Community centers, small but in the charge of determined men and women. Parks, established trading centers.

It was all very productive and wholesome and hopeful. Tyrion was ashamed that he found that he hated it a little. And it was another reason to find himself lacking, as Bronn was better at breaking those fights up. All Bronn had to do was point out he was Master of Coin, so they'd better figure out how to do whatever they wanted within the budget he'd already assigned them, and then they'd go off grumbling. 

"But the whole point of the escort is to provide Ellaria Sand with a royal honor guard of sorts," Tyrion said, thinking quickly. "It is laughable—"

"I'm sending Jon and some Northmen with you," said King Bran. "That should be enough." 

"Jon Snow is supposed to go North to take the black," Tyrion said. "That is _your_ justice." 

King Bran said, "And he will. After he escorts you and Ellaria Sand to Dorne."

There was a clear note of dismissal in his voice. Tyrion considered for a moment pressing the point that the last time a Lannister had traveled to Dorne, he'd brought back the Lannister girl he had gone to save in a coffin; but Tyrion had said to Ellaria that he no longer wanted to hold his ghosts against anyone again, and he'd meant it. So instead he bowed in acknowledgment and took his leave.

As he walked to his rooms, Tyrion found himself missing whoring and drinking. Or, at least, he missed _enjoying_ whoring and drinking. It seemed he had lost his taste for either. Another dissatisfying result of everything that had happened. 

He reached his rooms, entered, and stood purposelessly inside the door. The larger room he was in was his office. There was a smaller room where he'd set up a cot for sleeping, which he thought might have been a closet previously. Not much of the Red Keep was habitable any longer, which meant there weren't many options for rooms. Just a few of the towers and about a quarter of the lower floors could still be used.

King Bran called it the Broken Keep. "For Bran the Broken," he'd said in a particularly blank tone that somehow sounded like an accusation. "No matter. We must build a kingdom before we build more castles. This will be enough for now. At least we will have some shelter, even in winter, and more space than most."

And that had been that. Tyrion hadn't minded so much. Any room he had was an improvement from a prison cell.

Once ensconced in the privacy of his room, Tyrion forced himself to recognize his own hypocrisy. He'd told Ellaria Sand that he wanted peace; yet was this not peace? What right did he have to resent it?

He wondered: would Daenerys have done any of this? She had burned and conquered, but when had she ever built something new to replace the structures that had existed? Tyrion was no different. He had known only how to navigate the world as it had been, not how to build another. It had never occurred to him to do such a thing, no matter how smart he had thought he was. Break the wheel, she'd said; but what happened after that? Would they have simply stood at the top of a new wheel?

The wheel had crushed so many; kings and queens, princes, heads and heirs of Houses great and small, all running roughshod over their people and each other to play the game of thrones. If that was the wheel, what did a broken wheel look like? The wheel had broken so many. Perhaps something like that was already broken.

Damaged, bleeding, and still literally scorched from the wars, it was their time to shape the world to fit them instead of trying to fit the world. This was their chance to build a peace that would last longer than a decade or so. This was their chance for peace. Peace was a legacy that could last, if they got it right.

Peace was hard work. It was rewarding work. They were building a new way to live now that the old way had been razed to the ground. This was what Tyrion wanted. Perhaps Daenerys would have wanted that too, after she finished punishing the broken world for all she had lost.

Maybe. 

Tyrion gritted his teeth against the waves of grief and self-recrimination that lingering doubt inspired.

Gods, he wished he could just...threaten someone. He almost missed Joffrey's cruel vitriol, Cersei's poisonous half-smiles as she plotted; the swoop of fear as he tried to out-think his family, out-plot his enemies, outsmart and withstand the world as it closed down around him, the cracking ceiling forever threatening to fall on his head. At least he'd known how to handle that as no one else could, whereas anyone with two brain cells to rub together could do what Tyrion did now. The king didn't need him. The realm didn't need him.

He was just a useless remnant of an institution of power and privilege that lingered like a ghost.

Tyrion sat heavily in a chair and buried his face in his hands.

He didn't deserve peace.

Not that the world cared. Three days hence, he was on a ship with Ellaria Sand, Jon Snow, a Northman by the name of Lord Robett Glover who had come to bend the knee to King Bran and clearly had several complicated feelings about Jon, a startlingly determined looking Gilly Tarly who was seen off by a weeping Sam Tarly holding the child Sam Tarly, and Davos Seaworth, current Master of Ships.

"I need to speak to the Evenstar and Prince Quentyn about pirates," Davos told Tyrion with a grimace a few hours into their journey. "I would sooner drown myself. The irony is killing me as it is. Maybe the Evenstar will do me the favor of doing it for me."

"Oh, you know the Evenstar?" Gilly asked, suddenly inserting herself into their conversation. "Sam didn't know anything about him! Is he nice? He invited me to stay at Evenfall. He said Brienne would welcome the company. He even said I could bring little Sam, but Sam looked so lonely at the thought of both of us gone that my boy insisted on staying behind." Suddenly shy, Gilly bit her lip. "The Evenstar's a lord, isn't he? Do you think he will like me? I've met one before, but he didn't think much of wildings."

The ship would be stopping on Tarth on its way to Dorne. Gilly would disembark there and the rest of them would go on to Dorne. Davos had chosen to go to Dorne first as well, which Tyrion had thought nothing of until it turned out that Davos was more afraid of the lord of a small island off the coast than a nest of vipers. 

He remembered that Gilly had been talking cheerfully to Ellaria just a moment ago, but when Tyrion glanced over at the place on deck he'd last seen Ellaria, she was gazing distantly out at the sea. The sharp line of her jaw reminded Tyrion of how wasted and thin she had been the last time they'd spoken. Gilly had quietly told him that she had been much worse when they'd first found her in her cell, which was horrifying to try to imagine; so he didn't. Jon was moving towards her now, which was probably for the best. Ellaria didn't seem much for speaking anymore, and Jon Snow had said maybe twenty words in Tyrion's presence since Daenerys. They could stand and brood prettily together. Tyrion was relatively certain that either would be sufficient to keep the other from doing something dramatic, like throwing themselves over the railing. 

Reluctant concern abated, Tyrion turned back to the conversation at hand. "I'm sure he'll like _you_ , a friend of his daughter's," Davos was saying glumly to Gilly as Tyrion turned back to the conversation. "I'm more worried about myself, really. Not much love lost between me and Selwyn of Tarth. He's stabbed me at least twice."

"And how many times have you stabbed him?" Tyrion queried. 

"None," Davos said, "but that might be from a distinct lack of trying. I'm no fighter. If he ever showed up, I generally tried to find myself as far away from him as possible."

"Sounds like a fearsome man," said Tyrion. The Evenstar was shaping up in his mind to be exactly the kind of man that would have a daughter like Brienne of Tarth, first woman knight of Westeros. "One with no fondness of pirates, but likely no particular grudge against wildings."

"You're just saying that to be nice," Gilly said, but looked somewhat mollified. She started peppering Davos with questions about Tarth and his former life as a smuggler, questions that Davos looked embarrassed to answer, but also pleased by her interest. They had no need of Tyrion to contribute to the conversation, and so he found his mind wandering as it had been wont to do lately.

Had Brienne given birth to the babe already? Tyrion felt his brow wrinkle as he tried to put together a timeline. How many months had it been since Daenerys had burned Kings Landing? To his consternation, he found that time slipped and twisted in his memory, becoming a blur.

What did come clearly to him instead were the memories of watching his brother in the weeks after the Long Night as Daenerys readied her armies to march south and take her throne: Jaime trailing Brienne through Winterfell like a nervous puppy as she worked in Sansa's service, checking in with the various members of the household; he had somehow always been in the same room as her, hovering in doorways and corners until she noticed him there and gave him a shy, small smile that belied the pleasure that shone in her eyes to see him.

Inevitably, if Tyrion looked at Jaime at that moment, he would see his brother light up and immediately make a beeline for Brienne as if that look had triggered some invisible thread to draw Jaime to her, his eyes glowing, his entire countenance radiating joy even as his body visibly shook off anxiousness and relaxed into a false insouciance, a ready quip on his tongue to try and bring the full force of her laughter out. If Tyrion looked at Brienne, there would be a merriment in her eyes even as she tried to deny Jaime it; the straight man to Jaime's jester, playing some kind of game that existed only between the two of them, the world contracting and narrowing down to nothing but them, even if the room was crowded with people to bursting.

It had been _unbearable_ to see it. Yet Tyrion had soaked it in greedily every time he was present to bear witness to it. He had never seen his brother like that; he'd never seen anyone else like that, besotted and delighted to just breathe the same air as the other. 

Tyrion remembered how that had felt with Tysha, even if it had been a lie. He could understand why Jaime would have stayed for that. He just couldn't understand why Jaime would stay at all if he was only going to leave in the end.

He blinked, realizing suddenly that Gilly and Davos had stopped talking and were now watching him, nearly identical looks of sympathy on their faces. His face was wet.

"Tyrion," Davos said gently, and Tyrion stumbled to his feet quickly, wiping his face on his sleeve.

"I'll take dinner in my room tonight," Tyrion said, and tried not to run back to the private room that he had managed to arrange for himself. He caught Ellaria's eye on the way. She watched him with a neutral expression on her face. When he tore his eyes away from her, Tyrion accidentally met Jon Snow's sorrowful expression, which nearly stopped him in his tracks.

But only for a moment, before he fled for the safety of his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find it very interesting how the show didn't have Jaime reveal the truth about Tysha to Tyrion as he did in the books. This is unlikely to come up again, but I thought I'd mention it.


	5. Jon I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A storm is coming. Jon learns some (but not all) truths on Tarth.

As they pulled into port, the captain squinted up at the dark clouds pulling into the sky and said to Davos, "Looks like we'll be landed on Tarth for a few days at least. Sorry 'bout that."

"Ah," Davos said, drooping a bit. "Alright. I've got business on Tarth to settle anyhow. Better get it over with." He walked off, looking quite grim, leaving Jon and the captain behind on the deck.

"What're you gonna do with the woman?" the captain asked, nodding to Ellaria, who was standing at the railing some distance away. "Might be the Evenstar could find a cell for her for you. More secure than a room at an inn in any case."

"She's not our prisoner," Jon said. "We're here as her escort and her guards, for her own safety." Even as he said it, he had to suppress a wince. The words sounded like _prisoner_ disguised in different words. This was the kind of double speak Jon had hated most as King of the North and as Lord Commander. 

The captain raised a bushy eyebrow. "My mistake," the man said with some irony. 

Jon nodded tersely in response, and the captain slapped a friendly hand on his shoulder with a chuckle. "You're not made for politics, lad," the captain said. "I wish you luck." Then he went off, shouting the occasional order at his men.

Left on his own, Jon made his way towards Ellaria, who already had Lord Glover at her side. He watched resignedly as Lord Glover caught sight of him heading to them and the usual expressions flitted across the man's face; trepidation, shame, disgust, and finally a stiff and unnatural attempt at neutrality. "Snow," Lord Glover said. He was not made for politics either. Truth be told, Jon preferred people like that.

Jon nodded. "Lord Glover," he greeted in reply, not bothering to take offense. Why would he? It was as accurate an address as any nowadays. At least he hadn't said _bastard_. "The captain has decided to wait out the storm. I suppose we will put in at Tarth and hope the Evenstar will not mind giving us rooms until we can continue our way to Dorne."

"Tarth," Ellaria said suddenly, startling both men. She smirked a little at that. "Have you been, Lord Glover? Lord Snow?" Lord Glover's face went very pale and then very red.

"I'm no Lord," Jon said, cutting in before Lord Glover could say anything. "I'm just Jon Snow again and I'll be taking the black after you have been safely escorted to Dorne."

"Ah," Ellaria said. Her eyes narrowed as if honing in on this tension between them, and then she blinked and looked briefly lost. She turned her face away from them both, looking to Tarth instead. "I have been here before," she said distantly. "With Oberyn. Tyene was two." She did not say, _and now she is dead_ , but Jon somehow heard it, and judging by Lord Glover's wince, so did he.

When they disembarked, there was a tall pale blond man waiting for them. He stood proudly, a stout graying man in armor who had clearly once been a soldier or a knight standing at his side.

Tyrion, who Jon had not seen since the first night at sea, walked with Davos in front of the rest of the party. Gilly followed right behind them, clutching her small pack nervously, and Jon and Lord Glover brought up the rear behind her with Ellaria standing between them.

"My lord Hand," the tall man greeted Tyrion, bowing. "I am Selwyn of Tarth, Evenstar and Lord of Tarth. Welcome. Your captain tells me that you will be weathering the storm here on our small island. Please allow me the pleasure of hosting you at our own Evenfall, though I expect it may not have even half the splendor you must be used to."

"Well met, Lord Selwyn of Tarth," Tyrion said jovially. "I do believe that anything you see fit to share with us will be a sight better than the closet I have spent the last months living in, not to mention the prison cell I was graciously provided before that. However, I must confess that I find such humble words to be positively diverting; I could see the beauty of your island from the sea, but now that I have that I have both feet on the ground here, I understand that vision was only a shadow of the true richness your island holds. Rest assured, my Lord Evenstar, we believe we have every reason to not expect any disappointment in you as our host, and we congratulate you on your wisdom in keeping such wonder secret from the rest of our war-mad noble brethren." 

Jon was startled when Lord Selwyn burst into loud, braying laughter as Tyrion finished off his speech. When Tyrion had begun speaking, the man's brow had furrowed and become wary; by the end, both eyebrows had lifted and his dark eyes glinted with humor. And that, Jon thought wryly, was why Tyrion had been Hand to three different rulers.

"My lord Hand," Lord Selwyn said, amusement lingering in his voice and countenance, "I had heard much of you before you arrived, and I must admit I was prepared to bear your presence with whatever grace I could muster, but I am delighted to see that you are a man of humor. Humor is rare these days among those left of, as you say, our 'war-mad noble brethren.' Well met, Lord Tyrion." Then he turned to Davos. A single pale eyebrow quirked up. "Lord Davos."

"Ah, piss off," Davos grumbled. "Ser, Lord, all titles I could do without from you of all people. Call me Davos, Lord Selwyn, and be done with it." 

The other eyebrow shot up as well, and Jon saw the man was carefully suppressing a smile. "That would be most improper," Lord Selwyn mused. "Such informality, and with the Master of Ships no less!"

"I liked you better when you were trying to stab me," Davos groused. "Aye, Master of Ships I may be, but I'm not going to make you stand on ceremony with our history. I'll be just Davos to you, if you can stand the impropriety." 

"Just Davos," Lord Selwyn agreed, the smile breaking through. "Quite an upgrade from the Onion Knight."

"You think you're funny, I see," Davos muttered, but Selwyn had moved on already.

"Lord Glover," Lord Selwyn greeted the man, receiving a curt nod in return. His eyes slid away from the Northman and lingered on the woman to his side.

"Lord Selwyn," Ellaria said stiffly. 

"Ellaria Sand," Lord Selwyn said. "It has been many years." He paused, eyes assessing the way she pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. "I am sorry for your loss. Losses." 

Ellaria remained tense, not quite looking him in the eye. "Thank you."

Lord Selwyn nodded, looked at Jon. "Jon Snow," he said. "I have heard much of you as well." 

"I am at your service, my lord," Jon said with a bow, nervous before this man as he hadn't been in a long time. Lord Selwyn's eyes settled heavily on him, and then he moved on again, finally breaking into another smile.

"You must be Gilly," he said to the nervous young woman clutching her small pack, who stepped forward.

She automatically beamed back, but her voice remained high with anxiousness. "Hello, my lord," Gilly managed, her smile faltering once before she steeled herself and straightened her back. Jon was surprised to feel an unexpected wave of pride at her determination not to be cowed. "I am Gilly, yes. I'm a wilding." She said the last bit with a certain amount of stubborn pride.

"You have traveled far for one so young," Lord Selwyn said mildly. "It is quite impressive. I have certainly never been beyond the Wall. You must have seen much."

Gilly looked a bit dazed, as if she had been expecting much more of a fight and this polite courtesy was more bewildering than she had been prepared for. "I—yes. It's been, well, I haven't liked all of it," she admitted, "but I would rather have seen the things I didn't like than still be—where I was."

Lord Selwyn nodded and chuckled wryly to himself. "I see why you and my daughter would be friends," he said.

Gilly positively lit up at that. "How is Brienne?" she asked eagerly, and Jon startled. Brienne—right, of Tarth. Somehow he'd forgotten. He was so used to seeing her at Sansa's side that he'd forgotten that she'd had a whole life before she'd sworn herself into Sansa's service. "We've been exchanging letters of course, but it's hard to tell how she's really doing. She's so private, you know, and with everything as it is—well, I was scared with my Sam, and so many of the women in my family died—" and Tyrion was turning to look at her, his eyes wide with horror.

"Of course you are eager to see her. She has been looking forward to your visit as well," Lord Selwyn interrupted gently, and turned to Tyrion. "My lord Hand, Ser Goodwin will assist you in bringing your things to Evenfall. I hope you will excuse me, as I must escort my daughter's dear friend to her side."

"Please, do not let us keep you," Tyrion said easily. "I am certain Ser Goodwin will be an exceptional replacement host."

Lord Selwyn bowed. "Thank you." He offered his arm to Gilly. "Shall we, Lady Gilly?"

"We haven't got ladies like you southerners have," Gilly said as she took his arm. "I'm just Gilly."

"Well, then, Gilly," Lord Selwyn said, leading her to a carriage waiting on the road, "I would be delighted if you could tell me more of what you have observed about us southerners."

Ser Goodwin stepped forward then, bowing deeply to the group left behind. "We don't often have such illustrious guests," he said stolidly, "and we only have the one carriage. However, Lord Selwyn thought that you might like to partake in a light lunch while we prepare your things to be sent to Evenfall."

"That sounds wonderful," Tyrion said. "Lead on, Ser Goodwin."

Ser Goodwin bowed again, less deeply, and began walking. Davos fell into step with him, and then Lord Glover dropped back with a trailing Ellaria, leaving Jon to walk with Tyrion.

Jon and Tyrion hadn't spoken since that time in Tyrion's cell, Tyrion's eyes bright with grief, his voice heavy with fear and sadness. Not since before Jon went to Daenerys and then drove a knife into her heart. Jon didn't know if it had been him who had been avoiding Tyrion or Tyrion who had been avoiding him. It was probably a combination of their efforts that had made it possible for them to avoid any conversation until now.

Before them, Davos and Ser Goodwin were discussing lighthouses. Behind them, Lord Glover had politely engaged Ellaria in a conversation about whether she found Tarth much changed from the last time she had visited.

Jon and Tyrion walked silently between them, like men going to their execution. An ironic comparison, Jon thought, not without some dark humor, considering the recent history between the Starks and the Lannisters. Still, the walk continued, and even Jon could not bear the silence any longer.

"Lord Selwyn was not what I expected," he managed finally, the only neutral topic he could think of.

Tyrion's brow furrowed, and the other man glanced up at Jon quizzically, meeting Jon's eyes in the first time in...a long time. "What do you mean?"

Jon was struck with relief and also some panic. He hadn't expected that he might need to _explain_ himself. "He is Lady Brienne's father," he said uncertainly. "I thought he might be more...proper."

This time, Tyrion's look up at him was incredulous. "He is a lord who allowed his highborn daughter to learn to wield a sword to an advanced level of ability; of course he is the sort of man that isn't concerned about impropriety. Certainly you can't have thought that she simply came into all that strength and skill after she left her island."

Embarrassed, Jon realized he might have thought something along those lines. Or, at least, he simply hadn't given it any sort of thought and it hadn't occurred to him that it would have been by Lord Selwyn's allowance that Lady Brienne would have learned swordplay. Even in the North with the Mormonts and the fierce Northern women, the young ladies of Winterfell had been discouraged from such lessons, though Ned Stark had been rather lenient whenever Arya had simply demanded to learn or picked up weapons regardless.

Tyrion actually laughed at him. "Come now, Jon Snow! You have seen dragons and wights and magic, and yet it is the idea that a father might willingly teach or, gods forbid, _encourage_ his daughter to learn war arts is what gives you pause?"

"I have never been accused of an excess of imagination," Jon admitted.

"I hope you will not take offense," Tyrion said wryly, "but given this shocking display, I must admit that I have come to suspect that the North is better off in Sansa's hands than yours."

Jon smiled briefly at that. "Of course it is," he said. "I could have told you that myself. I would have told anyone that if they would have listened, but they didn't seem likely to."

"Well, at least the North is in her hands now," Tyrion said. "Long live the Queen of the North."

"Long live Queen Sansa," Jon agreed, and worried over a thought the turn of the conversation had provoked.

Tyrion noticed, of course. "What is it?"

Caught out, Jon said reluctantly, "It is only... I had not realized that Lady Brienne was here on Tarth. I had thought that she was at Winterfell, with Sansa." It was only now, knowing that she wasn't, that Jon realized that he had assumed she would be and been relieved at the idea of the stalwart lady knight at Sansa's side as she navigated these first years of her reign. Who defended his cousin's back now? Who did she trust now that Brienne was in Tarth and Arya was...wherever she was?

No one, probably. That was a sobering thought.

He became aware that Tyrion was watching him. "She did not tell you?" Tyrion asked carefully.

"No," Jon said. He felt a dull sort of ache; he and Sansa had built a trust of sorts, until he had bent the knee to Daenerys without consulting her, until he had pushed to take the armies south in deference to Daenerys's impatience, until he had killed Daenerys himself after doing everything in his power to give her what she wanted. He supposed that after all that, it wasn't unreasonable that she would rather keep her own counsel.

Tyrion nodded, and then they were quiet again. An inn came into view and Ser Goodwin said, "There it is," and made a beeline for the door, Davos at his heels. The rest of them lingered outside for a while. Ellaria was telling Lord Glover a story of Tyene stealing a spoon from that very inn by tucking it into her clothes, her eyes lighting up in a way that Jon had never seen before, her voice low and soft but surprisingly animated.

Ser Goodwin appeared at the door and beckoned them in, disappearing inside again almost immediately. As they headed in, Tyrion said thoughtfully, "Queen Sansa is not the girl that she was, and she is not any of the queens that we have had so far. I do not claim to know her mind, but I am certain that if she did not tell you, it wasn't personal. She has a lot on her mind right now, I suspect. It is easy for such things to slip the mind under duress."

Jon nodded absently at the words. He didn't quite believe them, and Tyrion looked like he expected that he wouldn't.

"Ah well," Tyrion said. "At least we have lunch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Ygritte is watching, she's just shaking her head at Jon Snow. Poor dude is always the last to know things.
> 
> BTW I'm going to be busy for a while, so the next update might take a while. If only I didn't have to work to live, am I right? Haha


End file.
